Capitol Notebook: Close `Fast Track' Vote Brings Romance To Congress

Capitol Notebook

WASHINGTON — Congressmen don't always get a lot of respect in Washington.

Who cares, after all, about any one House member when his vote is just one of 435?

But every so often, a big, divisive issue comes along that gets decided by a single vote.

That's expected to be the case today, when the House takes up a measure eagerly sought by President Clinton: approval of so-called "fast track" authority that allows the White House to negotiate trade agreements that cannot get amended by Congress.

Without fast track, the White House says, foreign countries will be unwilling to come to the bargaining table if, when a deal is cut, it could be rewritten on Capitol Hill.

It is hardly a new issue. Every president since Gerald Ford has enjoyed fast-track authority. But opponents, mostly Democrats, say the Clinton White House should not be empowered to cut trade deals that do not protect labor and environmental standards.

With the outcome up for grabs in the unusual Sunday session, administration officials have been waging an intensive lobbying campaign to win over as many congressmen as possible, one at a time.

Through personal visits, phone calls, and TV interviews in key districts, White House officials have been coming to House members on bended knee, hoping to provide all the assurances they need to vote for fast track. And if the ideological argument doesn't persuade, sometimes a little back-scratching is in order.

That's how Rep. Herbert H. Bateman, R-Newport News, got to meet with top-level administration and Defense Department officials on a matter dear to his heart: a $268 billion defense bill that provides authority to shift extra money for a new aircraft carrier to be built at Newport News Shipbuilding.

The bill has passed Congress, but the White House has threatened a veto.

"I got good vibrations in terms of what they will recommend to the president," Bateman said Friday.

While he has intended to support fast track, Bateman said, he officially cast himself in the undecided column in the hopes of winning influence on other issues, such as the defense bill.

"If you're recorded early on as being for it, you're going to be ignored," he explained. "This is not something I have traded my vote for. I am going to support fast track because I think it's in the interest of the United States of America. But I am pleased I've had the opportunity to get some assurances and have some discussions that otherwise would not have taken place."

In addition to the defense bill, Bateman said he won assurances from House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. - another fast track supporter - that a pending shipbuilding trade agreement approved by the Senate would get a thorough review in the House and plenty of time to make amendments. Bateman has expressed concerns that the trade measure could strip away protections for American shipyards.

Gingrich, he said, "has assured me no one will deal with that legislation without my ability to be involved at the table."

Democratic congressmen who oppose fast track have not been courted so heavily.

Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Newport News, said fast track could lead to increased layoffs because of lax labor and environmental standards that leave the United States unable to compete fairly with foreign countries.

Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-Petersburg, is also leaning against fast track based on concerns about the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiated with Mexico and Canada, a spokesman said.

AFFIRMING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION. Conservative Republicans have been eager to end all racial and gender preferences, a position that polls have shown strikes a chord with a majority of Americans.

But faced with a crowd of affirmative action supporters last week, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, House Republicans blinked.

Instead of pursuing a nasty showdown, the House Judiciary Committee agreed to table a bill that would have scrapped all racial and gender preferences in federal contracting and employment.

The move effectively kills the matter until next year.

It also exposed deep divisions within the GOP toward affirmative action policies. Many conservatives are pushing to end racial preferences now, noting the popularity of California's Proposition 209, which bars race-based preferences in state government and state schools. A Supreme Court decision last week upheld the measure as constitutional.

But moderate Republicans joined with a solid bloc of Democrats to kill the bill on a 17-9 vote.

"This bill is more extreme than anything the Supreme Court has contemplated," said Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Newport News, a Judiciary Committee member and strong supporter of affirmative action.

Scott, Virginia's only black congressman, acknowledged the bill "scores well politically." But he noted that efforts to remove racial preferences at state law schools in California and Texas resulted in a steep drop in minority admissions.

"I don't think mainstream America believes it's a good idea for the law school at the University of California to be all white," he said. "I believe the American public accepts the need to remedy discrimination."

But with the political tide turning against racial preferences, GOP leaders made clear their determination to bring back the measure next year.

"The issue won't go away, so we will try to refine the work product," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill.

QUIP OF THE WEEK: President Clinton, speaking at a rally Monday for Democrat Don Beyer: